Liverpool Curriculum and
Culture Pilot
A Curious Minds Summary Evaluation on
behalf of School Improvement Liverpool
Dr Stephanie Hawke. November 2014
Map featuring organisations involved in the Curriculum and Culture Pilot
Background and Context
The publication of the Mayor of Liverpool’s Education Commission Report in July 2013 inspired a
partnership between School Improvement Liverpool and Curious Minds.
The report’s fourth recommendation was as follows:
An enhanced Liverpool curriculum should be developed that draws together best
practice in the city in relation to the early years’ foundation stage, the national
curriculum, the local cultural and sporting contribution and the effective development of
life and employment skills. This enhanced curriculum should be made available
systematically to every Liverpool learner, and its progress and impact should be
monitored as part of the core work of all schools.
(Mayor of Liverpool, 2013: 54)
The Liverpool Curriculum and Culture programme was informed by the Area Based Curriculum
model. There are a number of ABC pilots and the Royal Society for the Encouragement of the
Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) piloted three projects in Manchester between 2008 and
2009 funded by Manchester City Council:
The aim of an ‘area based curriculum’ seems elegant in its simplicity: to enhance the
educational experiences of young people “by creating rich connections with the
communities, cities and cultures that surround them by distributing educational efforts
across the people, organisations and institutions of the local area.”
(RSA, 2009, cited in Facer, 2009: 2)
The pilot grew out of a broad consensus that a highly centralised and standards driven process of
curriculum design has yielded little success in tackling educational inequalities and in raising
attainment (Hargreaves, 2009; Fullen, 2006 cited in Facer, 2009: 7) and that there is urgent need
to explore how to re-engage teachers and schools in the process of curriculum design.
In Manchester the projects focused less upon specific learning outcomes and more upon
responsiveness to local circumstances and the development of individual students (Facer, 2009:9).
This is an approach to curriculum making rooted in process, one that allows students to actively
generate knowledge that has real meaning to them, rather than to passively receive it. The
pedagogy was underpinned by ‘inquiry-led’ approaches to learning.
Alfred North Whitehead argued that the purpose of learning is not simply to regurgitate inert
knowledge but to transform it by reacting to, shaping or applying it (Whitehead, 1923). In this vein,
the Area Based Curriculum is one that focuses on the locality of schools and communities to make
a curriculum that is ‘relevant’ to children’s lives and experiences and thereby will enhance their
engagement with learning (Facer, 2009: 10).
Environmental psychology has shown that a strong sense of place can boost an individual’s selfesteem and perception of self-identity which can ultimately result in greater self-efficacy (Twigger,
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Ross and Uzzell, 1996). It follows that an Area Based Curriculum should generate positive
outcomes for the individual learner not just in terms of subject areas but more broadly for individual
and community identity, belonging and self-belief.
Impact for Cultural Organisations
Cultural organisations described the impact of the project in terms of understanding and developing
an offer for new age groups, particularly KS1 and primary. They hoped they had developed
relationships that might become longer term with their local schools and they were surprised by the
aspects of the curriculum that presented most difficulty to teachers. Many grasped the opportunity to
pilot their workshops or develop their ideas for this particular market:
“… in terms of trying to get the primary school stuff off the ground, it’s something that as the schools
return next week we’ve got a new kind of action plan.”
“Our problem as a lot of organisations, is just capacity. Because we have a strong secondary school
model that almost looks after itself…”
“I think that has been useful to be able to work with the teachers and work out which areas they
were struggling on and what I found really interesting was that there were certain areas that I was
quite surprised that they were struggling to kind of bring them to life.”
“I would like to see that being the beginning of a long term relationship… so we will have to make
sure that we follow up there as well and can do that…. It’s definitely built the relationship; it’s got us
closer to building the relationship.”
Children at Mosspits Lane Primary School discovered a piece of Bronze Age pottery in their school grounds whilst taking
part in an archaeological excavation with Dean Patton and his company, Big Heritage.
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Impact for Children
The project had positive impacts for the children in terms of: subject knowledge and understanding;
children’s cultural capital and confidence to visit cultural venues outside of school time; for the
involvement and engagement of parents and grandparents; for children’s pride and sense of
belonging; and also for their enjoyment of learning and career aspirations.

Subject knowledge and understanding
“You know they’ve gone above and beyond what I could ever have done myself and I think the
children have remembered a lot.”
“…it actually gave them lots of questions.”
“They can actually use maps they can use keys with maps, they’ve used all of that. But also that
they have some sense of what a fantastic place this was in the ‘60s and that that culture that was
started there continued on and that Liverpool is still a beacon for music and for culture throughout
the world and just becoming aware of the number of people that actually come into Liverpool to visit
it.”

Cultural capital and confidence to visit cultural venues outside of school time
One teacher explained the context for her pilot project: “I’m only talking about my children here, they
tend to be culturally closed, so they tend to be focused on Liverpool 8, and everything else is a bit
terrifying for them to be perfectly honest.”
Children at Kingsley Primary School had visited Unity Theatre and explained how comfortable they
would now be to go back there in their own time:
“…we’d be like we know everyone and people would just be like ‘we know everyone’. It would feel
different and I wouldn’t feel awkward.”
“So in many ways it’s very important I think for the school then to say, you know, the Unity is only
down the road and the kids will go, ‘oh, the Unity, we’ve been there’.”

Involvement and engagement of parents and grandparents
“Next year we will develop that further and I think with the teacher’s trail at the museum, we’re
looking to try and do one for families as well so that we could give that as a signpost you know in
your holidays or the weekend you can go and support, and then they could perhaps go and visit
with their families and that would be another place that they could go and see.”
“Obviously the kids go home and they talk about it… the Unity do some things with parents and we
hoped … that we actually take our parents to see their children perform in the Unity. And say: this is
here! This is what this building actually looks like, it’s here, down the road.”
“Quite a number of my parents had been to visit it since we took the children so it’s very interesting.
Very much so it has engaged parents and that’s what the interesting thing about it was.”
“I think for me one of the things for me was that you know, so many of the children went back into
the city centre with their parents after we’d visited and took them to see what they’d seen”
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
Enjoyment
“… they were just blown away by it really”

Pride and sense of belonging
“I think very definitely it’s given them an insight into their city and a pride in their city which I think is
important.”
“With St Vincent’s, knowing Monique (artist from Brouhaha International) and Monique lives in the
community as well and getting to meet her and see her and you know, and know that she’s not that
much older than them. She’s made, you know, she’s made such a big impact in the community,
giving them a sense of place and the contribution that they themselves could make as young people
to the community just by participating is really important because they all ended up being in the
Carnival behind and in front of Monique.”

Careers and aspirations
Children learned not only about their history and geography subjects but also about the cultural
organisations they worked with and careers in the arts, as this child explained:
“I liked meeting the people who worked in theatres because now I know that you don’t have to be an
actor to work in the theatre. You can be a director. And I asked them questions like, I like to learn
about what they do and what inspired them to do that.”
Impact for Teaching and Learning
Teachers reported that the project reinvigorated enthusiasm for subjects in their schools. They were
also given more ideas for art and cultural partners to work with in future, and some were thinking
about taking a more strategic approach to arts partnerships, for instance, by making links to the
criteria required of Artsmark Gold status.

Enthusiasm for subjects
“It’s been nice talking with other teachers as well and sharing ideas and they’re very motivated and
it rubs off on you as well.”
“Well I think it’s definitely made us a bit more excited about geography. Everybody kind of groans
when they have to teach geography. And when I did an audit in school, a lot of children didn’t even
know what geography was, it’s just basically not taught. But by being involved in the project and
being so enthusiastic about it, I think people are starting to see, I think people’s opinions are
changing and they’re actually starting to think, no actually it’s not just boring map skills, we can
actually make this exciting, we can bring the arts into it, and people are more enthusiastic about
teaching it.”
“…the teachers were fairly engaged when they were, when the sessions were being delivered,
certainly in Mosspits I know they were, they were very much kind of you know, open to learning
themselves from the process and take things on board and maybe just experience new teaching
techniques”
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“… the project’s really helped to establish the curriculum for next year to be honest because it’s
really made me think about the progression, what organisations could fit in where”
“…the plans for next year have definitely changed because of the project.”
“I think for so many different reasons I think it’s been the best topic I’ve ever done.”

Arts partnerships
“…we really need to keep this up, this is really the identity for our school, this is one of the areas
where, you know we’re now identified as being, you know, a centre to look at. So I think yeah that
will continue. And it’s also I think, given me just different leads to kind of go and you know look at,
think about that and try and put that in. I think it’s more accepted now that teachers would very
definitely need to do a link (to a cultural partner) for something, that it can’t be left alone.”
“Definitely but I think what we do with it now is that we work with it in a more structured way. It’s
always been here at the whim of a teacher whether they do or they don’t participate whereas now
it’s going to be much more structured and these are the things available and there’s a much more
heightened sense of ‘let’s do it’. You know this is such an important part of children’s education.”
“I think when everybody’s worked with a different organisation, they’ve all given the organisations
you know the slant from schools, what we’re working towards. So hopefully organisations will now
have a better understanding of what we need in school.”
“I’ve done actually in our curriculum map, how I’ve changed it now… because we do a topic
approach now. We do it as a subject based topic, but we’ve put in now, links with cultural
organisations and that is new.”
Bringing the Curriculum to Life
Interviews with teachers highlighted a number of ways in which cultural partnerships brought the
curriculum to life and these related to: authenticity of experience for children; engaging parents;
giving children real world experiences that could impact upon their career aspirations; and access to
subject specific knowledge and resources beyond those available in school.
“…it was so authentic, it really did add something that I feel I couldn’t have brought as a teacher.”
“Very much so it has engaged parents and that’s what was the interesting thing about it.”
“…they’ve talked about it ever since because they actually had the experience of performing in a
proper space. For children I think it has to be the performance in that space that brings it alive and
makes them think about actors and acting.”
“…he had all of the skeletons and the flints and things like that and he passed it round, so it was
really nice to have actual artefacts because I’d been teaching the children the Stone Age and we’d
looked at pictures of things for them to understand how we find out about the past you know when it
was so long ago.”
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Legacy
Teachers indicated a number of ways in which the Curriculum and Culture Pilot might have a
legacy. These related to: the need to continue a network; a continued engagement with art and
cultural organisations for curriculum delivery which in some cases will be more strategic (see above
7.2); and cultural organisations being better placed to support primary schools

Continued network
“I think an agenda item for the history network meetings to talk about what resources and support
are available would be quite important.”

Continued engagement with art and cultural organisations for curriculum delivery
“…the plans for next year have definitely changed because of the project. We’re definitely going to
do South America in Year One, we’re going to use Brouhaha again.”
“…the project’s really helped to establish the curriculum for next year to be honest because it’s
really made me think about the progression, what organisations could fit in where…”
“I think it’s more accepted now that teachers would very definitely need to do a link for something,
that it can’t be left alone.”
 Cultural organisations better placed to support primary schools
“…they’ve all given the organisations you know the slant from schools, what we’re working towards.
So hopefully organisations will now have a better understanding of what we need in school.”
“(as a result of our project) with Unity there’s now a workshop available for Ancient Greece.”
Added Value
The project benefitted from the outstanding knowledge and experience of the curriculum innovation
team within School Improvement Liverpool who were able to work alongside teachers in the
development of project ideas and in the brokering of partnerships. On the initiative of individual
members of this team, the project also achieved:






A new partnership with Big Heritage available for all primary schools in Liverpool
A fantastic range of primary and secondary source material on significant Liverpool individuals
collated with the help of local archivists
Additional Arts Award training for schools not already participating in the project
Schemes of work, case studies, archive materials and contact details of art and cultural
organisations available to all Liverpool Schools through the School Improvement Liverpool website.
A self-directed ‘Climate Trail’ making Liverpool World Museum accessible for the study of
geography
Sharing the learning at two regional events at which representatives from forty arts and cultural
organisations attended.
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Children at Kingsley Community School worked with Unity Theatre to explore theatre through the ages.
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Evaluation against Objectives
Objective
Achieved
a.
Teachers from 15 schools work with Curious
Minds, School Improvement Officers and staff in
cultural venues to plan and produce a curriculum
planning resource for Liverpool Schools based
around the new National Curriculum frameworks
for history and geography at Key Stage 1, 2 & 3
b.
The same group of teachers work with staff in
cultural venues to plan and produce a ‘family
learning map’ linked to the new National
Curriculum frameworks for history and geography
at Key Stage 1, 2 & 3
A map linking cultural venues to curriculum case studies was produced as part of a printed
resource circulated to all schools in the Autumn Term of 2014
c.
The teachers work with Curious Minds to embed
Arts Award into planning document and Family
Learning map
The final printed resource included case studies, a cultural venues map and index and details of
the Arts Award accreditation.
d.
The history and geography curriculum is brought to
life and made locally relevant and accessible as
part of the wider world class offer of cultural
education in the city and links are made to the
work of Liverpool learning Partnership
Teachers, children and art & cultural organisations reported through in-depth interviews, focus
groups and survey questionnaires that the project had brought new resources, skills and ideas to
the teaching of the new programmes of study. Children had enjoyed the experience and all case
studies and additional resources are available for Liverpool schools online.
12 schools engaged in 15 pilot projects (some schools opted to pilot both history and geography.
Schools and their projects are detailed in Appendix 2. All were primary schools.
At the beginning of the project, only 12% of teachers surveyed felt their history curriculum was
locally relevant and none of the teachers felt their geography curriculum was locally relevant. By
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the end of the project 100% of teachers agreed that their history and geography curriculum was
locally relevant.
“it was so authentic, it really did add something that I feel I couldn’t have as a teacher”
e.
The public investment made in Liverpool’s cultural
sector is maximised and the education effort is
distributed more widely across people,
organisations and institutions
All agree that the project had taken steps towards achieving this long term aim.
f.
Children and young people appreciate their unique
heritage and feel proud to live and learn in
Liverpool
Teachers reported that children had developed their sense of belonging to Liverpool and pride in
the city. In many cases the pilot projects had engaged parents in their children’s learning leading
to further visits to cultural organisations outside curriculum time.
g.
The quality and impact of teaching and learning,
particularly in history and geography, is improved
Teachers reported the project had reinvigorated enthusiasm for history and geography.
“…it’s made us a bit more excited about geography: it’s not just boring map skills, we can
actually make this exciting, we can bring the arts into it, and people are more enthusiastic
about teaching it…”
“…the plans for next year have definitely changed because of the project…”
“…the project’s really helped to establish the curriculum for next year, it’s made me thing
about what organisations could fit in where..”
h.
Teachers and other practitioners in schools know
what quality cultural education looks like and know
where to find it
80% of teachers surveyed agreed that by the end of the project they knew what a quality cultural
education offer looked like and new where to find it.
“…we will work with (cultural organisations) in a more structured way. It’s always been at
the whim of a teacher, whereas now it’s going to be more structured… this is such an
important part of children’s education”
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i.
Cultural apartheid is dissipated and the
achievement gap is narrowed
The project opened up cultural opportunities and learning to those who for a number of reasons
experience barriers and exclusion:
“It’s given them an insight into their city and pride in their city which I think is so
important”
“I would say that there is a change in the kids and in the excitement that they had
because not only could they relate it to their communities, but they were actually kind of
understanding it on a wider perspective as well.”
j.
This model provides a resource through which to
map other curriculum areas/ subjects into
Liverpool’s cultural offer
Teachers identified cross curricular opportunities in their cultural partnerships and described the
relationships they hoped to build with cultural organisations for other subject areas.
k.
Teachers will be able to support children aged 7
and above to achieve Arts Award
15 teachers became Arts Award advisors at Discover and Explore level as part of the project.
The training was very popular and as a result School Improvement provided Arts Award training
to a second cohort of teachers.
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Evaluation against ACE Quality Principles
Seven Quality Principles
Reflection on Curriculum and Culture Pilot

striving for
excellence
“… we knew that to maintain (Artsmark Gold) we had to do something different… it was that sense of wanting
to inject something new and have some new (cultural) links”

emphasising
authenticity
“… because it was so authentic, it really did add something that I feel I couldn’t have brought in as a teacher.”

being inspiring, and
engaging
“… its was just fantastic to give those children at that age, where they can grow up with it …and realise
that… it’s not any old place they come from, that Liverpool is known throughout the world.”
“For them to see artists that live and work in the community in Liverpool was really important for them…”

ensuring a positive
child-centred
experience
“… I would say that there is a change in the kids and in the excitement that they had because (they could)
relate it to their communities.”

actively involving
children and young
people
“… it actually gave them lots of questions.”

providing a sense of
personal progression
“The lovely thing about it is that my children can now open a map of Liverpool and can say, that’s that, that’s
that, we did that, we went there.”

developing a sense
of ownership and
belonging
“… we had this big massive group of kids who were doing the dances and you know they felt part of
something and a sense of place and they belonged.”
Children said: “(if we went to the theatre again) we’d be like, we know everyone. It would feel different and I
wouldn’t feel awkward”
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Summary of Partnerships
School
Subject and topic
Cultural
partner
The Trinity Catholic
Primary School
History – Stone Age to Iron Age. Literacy – storytelling
Writing on the
Wall and Big
Heritage
St Vincent de Paul
Catholic Primary
School
Geography: understand geographical similarities and
differences through studying the human and physical
geography of a small area of the United Kingdom, and a
small area in a contrasting non European country
Brouhaha
International
St Paul & St
Timothy’s Catholic
Infant School
Brouhaha
International
Rice Lane Junior
School
As above and also biomes (specifically rainforests)
World Museum
Liverpool
Rice Lane Junior
School
History – Stone Age, Bronze Age and Iron Age
World Museum
Liverpool
Mosspits Lane
Primary School
History – look at significant individuals from the past who
contributed to national and international achievements
The Comedy
Trust
Mosspits Lane
Primary School
History – a local history study
Mersey Ferries
eco-cruise
Big Heritage
Monksdown Primary
School
Geography – fieldwork and related skills
Chris Price,
Healthy Schools
Team based at
Toxteth Annexe
Longmoor
Community Primary
School
History – World War 1
Big Heritage
Kingsley Community
School
Geography – physical geography of Formby
National Trust –
coastal ranger
King David Primary
School
History – Stone Age to Iron Age
Liverpool Parks
King David Primary
School
History – Stone Age to Iron Age
Liverpool World
Museum
Windsor Community
History – a local study (Victorians)
Liverpool
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Primary School
Museum
Sudley House
Emmaus CE and
RC Primary School
History – significant historical people in their locality
(incorporating changes within living memory and the lives
of significant individuals in the past who have contributed
to national achievements)
Geography – skills – use aerial photographs and plan
perspectives to recognise landmarks and basic human
and physical features; devise a simple map; use and
construct basic symbols in a key
Blackmoor Park
Infant School
Changes in Britain within living memory
The Beatles
Story
Museum of
Liverpool,
National Trust
The
Piermaster’s
House, Museum
of Liverpool
References
Mayor of Liverpool, From better to best: The report of the Mayor of Liverpool’s Education
Commission July 2013 (online) Accessed on 03.10.14 at
http://lgalabour.local.gov.uk/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=562d4599-8535-416f-85e589bdd9a485e9&groupId=330956
Facer, Keri, Towards an Area Based Curriculum: Manchester Curriculum Literature Review
Manchester Metropolitan University, 2009 (online) Accessed on 03.10.14
http://www.thersa.org/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/286986/116821270-Area-Based-CurriculumManchester-Literature-Review.pdf
Twigger- Ross, C. L. and Uzzell, D. L. (1996) 'Place and Identity Processes', Journal of
Environmental Psychology, 16, pp. 205–220.
Whitehead, Alfred North (1922) ‘The Rhythmic Claims of Freedom and Discipline’ Hibbert Journal 21: 657-668
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